Ashes to Ashes
by Amael21
Summary: For better or for ill, Kubota and Tokito have changed each other. Kubota considers this, and what he fears. COMPLETE.


Darkness. The near-silence inside the room, underscored by the night-time sounds of the city below, is broken by a quick percussive sound. Light follows to break the inky pall that makes all here into formless shadows. For a moment, it illuminates the face of a young man. He squints his eyes against the onslaught and brings the tiny flame toward his face.

There is a faint crackling sound as he transfers the light from one medium to another, and the glaring brightness is chased by a faint red glow. He draws on the cigarette, eliciting a caressing illumination that clings to his features. As it dims, he lets his mind drift, like the curls of smoke that he can not see.

It is always like this now, the cigarette and the darkness, the comfort and the fear. He listens to the deep, even breathing of the recumbent form beside him. It tugs at him in ways that he has never known through his short eternity here. Sometimes it frightens him, which is also new.

He drags smoke from his cigarette. A crackle, the crimson light that fades as quickly as his interests, blending back into darkness. In the morning, he will endure another lecture for this breach, just as he has every morning since the first night like this. Always the same words meet the same bemused expression, and he is alive again after the little death of the night. They both know he will not stop, and that is all right. It has become a routine, this conflict over breakfast, and he is not sure anymore that he can walk in the world without being born this way, first. This person, through nothing more complex than simply _existing_, has changed him. In truth, they have moulded themselves, each to the other, until they no longer know where one ends and the other begins.

Another drag of his smoke, another brief flare, and he looks at it as he draws it from his mouth. Once it is lit, it becomes almost an entity of it's own. It requires no attention in order to smoulder, slowly consuming itself until nothing remains but ashes; it needs no imperative from it's creator to hurtle toward it's inevitable end. He understands this concept of autonomous self-destruction, down to his core.

_I'm like that, too,_ he thinks, alone in the heart of the night,_ like a short fuse, burning all the time._

How else to describe the detachment, the will, if not exactly the desire, to harm and even to kill? He would have said once, that he did not seek out conflict or confrontation…but here, in the unflinching eye of the night, he knows that he has been a liar. If not actively searching for these things, one does not immerse oneself in a world of turf wars, drugs, and death. The promise of life inherent in these games was his burn, the possibility of death too tempting to deny. All his life, he has been gambling on when he will turn to ash.

As a general rule, he shies away from introspection. In his experience, it leads to doubt and fear. He chooses not to fear…or rather, he used to. It is different now, for he has gained something precious and losing it is the only circumstance that truly frightens him. This one thing, he will protect unto the dissolution of all things. He glances back to the body next to him, heavy with unconcerned sleep, and marvels that this could be true.

Nearly a year ago it was, the chilly day when he had picked up this 'cat'. It had been an uncertain time as he taught the stray to trust him, but it had been novel enough to keep his interest. After he tamed it, he had named it, and his uncle had warned him about becoming attached to creatures to which one gives a name. It had been good advice, and it's tardiness was offset by the fact that it would have gone unheeded, in any case.

He reaches out to touch the warm skin of his lover's back and thinks how sublimely improbable it is that they are here, together. Twelve months ago they were complete strangers, and now they exist only for each other. Now the stray cat belongs to him, and he no less so to the cat.

He watches his cigarette burn out at the filter, and a soft grunt escapes him. He can not escape the inevitability of his burn, he will undoubtedly leave naught in his stead save ashes for the winds to scatter…

…but now he burns with a _purpose_.


End file.
